LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Oliver Hardy: Hal Roach
built 632 days ago
Beginning in 1941, Laurel and Hardy's films began to decline in quality. They left Roach Studios and began making films for 20th century Fox, and later MGM. Although they were financially better off, they had very little artistic control at the large studios, and hence the films lack the very qualities that had made Laurel and Hardy worldwide names.
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Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson into a theatrical family in Ulverston, England June 16th, 1890, and was to become the chief gag devisor of the Laurel and Hardy film comedy team. He joined Fred Karno's London music hall troupe in 1910, which ... employed Charlie Chaplin. For a time Stan was Charlie's understudy. When the troupe toured the United States, Stan, like Charlie, decided to remain. Stan made his first solo film short in 1917 and proceeded to make fifty shorts after that, mostly with Hal Roach Studios, before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy in 1926. Both men actually appeared in some ten shorts together, but as solo performers, before Hal Roach decided they were the perfect silent film comedy team; one thin, one heavy, playing off each other's appearances and personalities for laughs.
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This box set showcases most of the 97 shorts and features that Laurel & Hardy made together for Hal Roach Studios between 1926 and 1940. For fans of the boys this box from the UK and its German (Kinowelt Home Entertainment, Leipzig) and Dutch (Universal Pictures Video Benelux, Amsterdam) counterparts are the most comprehensive collection of Stan and Ollie's body of work to date. Among the conspicuously missing titles from the UK set are Flying Deuces, Babes In Toyland and Fra Diavlo.
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In 1955, it looked as though the new medium of television would provide an avenue for Laurel and Hardy to return to their former glories. The boys had contracted with Hal Roach Jr. to produce a series of TV shows based on the Mother Goose fables. However, this was never to be. Stan first suffered a stroke, which required a lengthy convalescence. Next, Oliver Hardy suffered a heart attack and stroke later that year. Oliver never physically recovered.
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The portly half of the Laurel and Hardy comedy team, he and Stan Laurel made more than 110 films together over some twenty years. Recognized for their trademark slapstick humor, they turned out dozens of short films, including the Oscar-winning The Music Box (1932), before turning to feature-length works such as Sons of the Desert (1934), Way Out West (1937), and The Flying Deuces (1939). Hardy appeared in two films without Laurel, The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) and Riding High (1950).
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In 1926, a hot leg of lamb changed the future of both Laurel and Hardy. Hardy was scheduled to appear in Get 'Em Young but was unexpectedly hospitalized after being burned by a hot leg of lamb. Laurel, who had been working as a gag man and director at Roach Studios, was recruited to fill in. Laurel kept appearing in front of the camera rather than behind it, and later that year appeared in the same movie as Hardy, 45 Minutes from Hollywood, although they didn't share any scenes together.
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Hal Roach